We found flat rolled prices so far this week at about the same levels seen one week ago. Our hot rolled average remained at $390 per ton ($19.50/cwt) with both the upper and lower parts of our range at the same levels seen one week ago. The lower end of the cold rolled price range […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final raw steel production estimates for the month of September 2015. The monthly estimates are different than the weekly estimates we report in our Tuesday issues; the AISI bases the monthly estimates on 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. only 50 percent for the […]
For the week ending October 31, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,641,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.6 percent decrease over the previous week and a 10.8 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 68.6 percent, down […]
The following article was written by contributing writer Damon Sun of Daido International. The Asian ferrous scrap markets are still very weak, but there are some positives recently. Rebar demand seemed to have picked up some in the last two weeks and consequently, there has been more activity in the containerized scrap markets. For reference, […]
The following article is written by Spencer Johnson of FC Stone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will rotate weekly futures articles with Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Spencer can be reached at spencer.johnson@intlfcstone.com. […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to erode at a moderate pace this past week. Steel Market Update reviewed the results of three other steel indexes as well as our own for the week ending October 30, 2015. We found, with the exception of the Platts indices, all of the other indexes saw prices down by […]
At least one company is seeing better days ahead for the oil and gas industry. OCT Pipe announced it will build a one million square foot pipe mill in Norfolk, Nebraska. CEO Charley Havens, of the Rockwall, Texas based company, said the $125 million facility will break ground soon and be operational by mid-2017. OCT […]
The following article is written by Spencer Johnson of FC Stone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will rotate weekly futures articles with Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Spencer can be reached at spencer.johnson@intlfcstone.com. […]
Scrap prices were forecast a week ago to drop $10-$20 per gross ton in November. However, we are beginning to hear that the scrap markets may not be as dire as predicted and the numbers may be much closer to sideways than down once the negotiations are concluded next week. One of our scrap sources […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the spread between world hot rolled export prices as determined by SteelBenchmarker and domestic (US) hot rolled prices as published by SMU. Steel Market Update compares the world hot rolled export price to which dollars are added for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. The number […]
Cliffs Natural Resources reported net income of $6 million for third quarter compared to a net loss of $6.9 million in Q3 2014. Cost cutting brought US Iron Ore Operations cash production costs down 16 percent to $49 per ton; Asian Pacific Iron Ore cash production costs decreased a record 49 percent to $27 per […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) asked a manufacturing company when they thought prices will stop dropping? Their response was both classic and profound, “Prices will stop going down, when they go up. Prices can’t go below absolute zero. Question then becomes as to what defines absolute zero…?” Flat rolled steel prices continued their march lower this […]
For the week ending October 24, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,667,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.5 percent decrease over the previous week and a 9.4 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 69.7 percent, down […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce (US DOC) released Preliminary Census Data for September foreign steel imports on Monday. September imports dropped below 3.0 million net tons and at 2.77 million net tons they were down 5 percent month-over-month. As you can see by the table below hot rolled imports were down by 100,000 tons and […]
Hot rolled prices are poised to crash through the $400 per ton ($20.00/cwt) barrier and head toward lows not seen since 2009 when SMU’s HRC average briefly reached $380 per ton ($19.00/cwt). This past week SMU saw flat rolled steel and plate prices drop on all of the indexes followed by SMU except SteelBenchmarker which […]
Global steel production in 12 months through September totaled 1.613 billion tonnes with a capacity of 2.3 billion tonnes. Capacity utilization in September was 69.3 percent with a three month moving average (3MMA) of 69.1 percent, down from 72.2 percent in three months through April. China accounted for 50.5 percent of global production in September. […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), iron ore and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Here is how Andre saw trading over the past week: Financial Markets: The stock market continues to prevail. From […]
Steel earnings calls began this last week and all of them reference the downturn in the oil industry and its effect on production. Low oil prices, overcapacity, and resulting weak demand for OCTG products continues to force firms to adjust output and workforce. Vallourec Star Steel announced this week that it will begin a third […]
Flat rolled prices dropped $5 to $10 per ton this week as the psychology of the market works against the sellers of steel. Hot rolled continues to be the weakest of the flat rolled products due to the energy, mining and agricultural markets. Other products are faring better (regarding demand) but not to the point […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce (US DOC) released the latest import license data for the month of October. Based on the 2.5 million net tons of license requests through the 20th of the month we are on pace to exceed 3.5 million tons for the month of October. Anything over 2.9 million net tons we […]
This report is a trial balloon and we ask your opinion as to whether such an analysis for the three major sheet products would be of interest. If so, we would go to the expense of purchasing data from the Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau, in the UK for the global trade of HR, CR […]
Cliffs Natural Resources is back pedaling after CEO Lourenco Goncalves said he would shut down a plant in the Iron Range if Essar Steel Minnesota goes into production. “If they go online, I will shut down a plant up there the same day,” Lourenco Goncalves said in an exclusive interview with the Mesabi Daily News […]
For the week ending October 17, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,675,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.8 percent decrease over the previous week and a 9.0 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 70.1 percent, down […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their downward spiral this past week based on our analysis of the four steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. We will be watching prices closely over the next week or two to see if we breach the psychological $400 per ton number on benchmark hot rolled coil. We have […]
During our Steel Summit Conference in September, Lisa Reisman the founder and Executive Editor of Metal Miner told those in attendance that the short term outlook for commodities and steel was bearish. She provided a number of support and resistance price points on a number of steel products as well as aluminum and zinc. In […]
On Tuesday of this week, SMU produced an article about the recent changes in coating extras by most (by not all) of the domestic mills. Within 30 minutes of publishing the article we knew we had made a couple errors of omission as we had The Techs with different extras that their parent company: Steel […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the spread between world hot rolled export prices as determined by SteelBenchmarker and domestic (US) hot rolled prices as published by SMU. Steel Market Update compares the world hot rolled export price to which dollars are added for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. The number […]
Flat rolled steel buyers and industry executives reported steel mills in both Canada and the United States as “aggressively looking for business” to run across their lines. Steel Market Update spoke with a manufacturing company on Monday who told us their company had been approached by a domestic mill not usually associated with cheap hot […]
For the week ending October 10, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,705,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.3 percent decrease over the previous week and a 7.3 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 71.3 percent, down […]
Earlier this year US Steel adjusted their coating extras and the long wait began for other mills to follow suit. In the meantime, spot zinc prices dropped below $0.74 per pound before bouncing back to $0.82 per pound over the past few days. Over the past couple of weeks most of the domestic mills have […]